spring awakening
by dress without sleeves
Summary: Part Three. They told her he was crazy. That his mind was snapped. She was fooled by Abbott, just like the rest of them. He held a gun to her head, but God, she loves him anyway. In which Nicky learns the truth.


Author's Note: Yep

**Author's Note:** Yep. Another one. I'm just crankin' these things out, aren't I?

spring awakening

_For Mrs. Williams:_

_Happy birthday!!_

Six weeks after David leaves her alive in the safe house, Ward Abbott comes to her apartment and tells her that Treadstone has been shut down forever. He takes all of the files that she's kept on her assets, congratulates her on a job well done, compliments her new hair, and then makes to leave.

He pauses at the door. "You know why, don't you?" He asks, turning to her with sad eyes.

"Of course," she answers stiffly. "Bourne deserted."

Abbott shakes his head, moving forward to put a hand on her arm. He's always been nice to her, nicer than Conklin or the other higher echelons. Fatherly, almost. "Nicky," he says softly, "They never even told you what happened, did they. You went from handler from to hunter in .7 seconds and they never told you why."

She blinks, taken aback by his bluntness, and shrugs at her tea. "Bourne developed amnesia," she answers, trying to sound nonchalant. "He was no longer an asset to the program."

The words hurt.

But Abbott is shaking his head, leading her to the couch and sitting beside her, hand still comforting and at rest on her wrist. "Bourne suffered from a complete psychotic breakdown," he tells her, looking her right in the eyes. "Triggered, yes, by his amnesia. He became uncontrollable. He's dangerous, Nicky, unpredictable. Like an escaped lion." He's gazing at her closely, calculatingly. "He could, at any moment, hurt an innocent person. Like he hurt Conklin. Like he hurt you."

"He didn't hurt me," she defends automatically. "He said he just wanted to be left alone. I believed him, Mr. Abbott."

"We _all_ believed him," he returns. Then, gently, "He's not your Jason Bourne anymore, Nicky. I knew him personally, too. He was a good man. But something in him … it snapped. He's not that man anymore. He doesn't _know_ right from wrong. I know handlers and their assets often become… attached, to one another. And I know how much it hurts to hear, but Jason Bourne is dead. There is no moral compass in that vessel anymore, Nicky. He would just as soon kill you or me as a baby in its crib. There's no telling what might set him off."

She's crying, openly, just too tired to hold it back anymore. "There _is_ no method to his madness," he says, tugging her into a gentle hug. "You did the best you could. We're all proud of you. I wish you the very best. If you ever need anything… you know where to find me."

She sniffs, nodding, pulling away. He brushes some tears off of her face and stands, smiling sadly. "There's nothing left of Jason in him," she says hesitantly as he walks to the door, experimenting with the taste of the words on her tongue. "Jason is as good as dead."

"He _is_ dead," Abbott corrects, and shuts the door behind him.

-X-

She goes back to school. It seems like the right step. She has to keep reminding herself of what Abbott said: David Webb, and even Jason Bourne, is dead. What's left is just his body. She wonders what thoughts drive him to his madness, wonders if she is one of them.

Sometimes she wishes he'd killed her, back at the safe house. If only so that she wouldn't know what she knows now, about him. If only so that she wouldn't have to live with the fact that she—inadvertently, unintentionally—pushed the man she loved into a madness he can never return from.

She wonders if Marie is still alive. (She is still jealous, still achingly sad that he could forget her so easily.) And in spite of everything, she hopes he is well. She does. She hopes he's settled somewhere quiet, where there is nothing to tempt him.

But it has been a year, and she is moving on. And if sometimes she wakes in a cold sweat and reaches for him only to find him absent, it's to be expected. If sometimes she dreams of him, stealing her Tostitos and drinking red wine, the pictures will fade in time.

She begins dating again a year and a half after she helps her country to hunt down the man she loved. (Loves?) His name is Dean. He likes rollerblading.

He can't disarm a man with a snap of his wrist.

-X-

The first time she sees Abbott again, her heart sinks. She knows immediately that the only reason he would come for her is David (she isn't sure she'll ever be able to think of him as anything else) so she gets into the car without a word.

She's sucked back into this world no matter how much she struggles to cling to the new, fragile one she's built; Abbott holds one arm and Landy the other and they practically carry her onto the plane.

There are pictures of him on every wall, videos streaming from computer screens, and she tells herself over and over: _he's dead. David Webb is dead. _She gives them the information she can and, for the first time, she starts to just… let go. Sometimes Abbott will press a hand to her shoulder and give it a squeeze, saying without words that he _understands_, and it helps more than he'll ever know.

She throws herself into the fight, into finding him. Because, whatever else happens, she will always be his handler. She was responsible for his mental health and she failed him, and if it is the last thing she does she will destroy the demons that haunt him. She will put Jason Bourne out of his misery, whatever it might take.

She owes him that.

-X-

"I need someone I know to bring me in. There was a girl in Paris, part of the program. She used to handle logistics."

Her brain shuts off. For a second the only words in her mind are: _he remembers me, he remembers me_—before she reminds herself, forcefully, that he remembers her from _Paris, _from the day he killed Conklin, as the girl in the background that wasn't even worth a bullet.

He doesn't remember lazy Saturday afternoons or coffee hunting. She's got to be strong about this. David Webb is dead. (You can find anyone if you look hard enough.)

And it surprises her, but Abbott is right. He is the only one who has understood, this whole time: Bourne has to be taken out. It hurts to say it, God it hurts to _think it_, but he's so far gone that even Nicky can't see any other way. He killed two innocent men, for God's sake, he probably stole millions of dollars in funds just for _kicks_; someone told her that Marie is even dead and that was probably him, too.

She isn't going to let him keep going like this. For his sake, and for everyone else's. She isn't going to _let_ there be another Marie; she knows how it would kill him to know what he's done—perhaps that is what's driving him now. She doesn't know. She just wants it to end.

All of it to end.

Landy pulls her aside, hand on her elbow, and says firmly but quietly, "You can say no, Nicky. You don't have to do this."

But in spite of everything, she can't bring herself to believe that he would hurt her. So she goes.

-X-

She gets on the tram. She's waiting for him, heart racing, hoping to God that she's still being followed by snipers.

Then his hand is on her elbow (she'd know his touch anywhere, she doesn't care _how_ crazy he's gotten). He's yanking her painfully through the crowd, his breath heavy and—and _angry_, and that's never been directed at her before.

And she's scared. Of him. And that hurts, too.

"Jason," she whispers, because no one would understand if she called him David, "Please don't hurt me."

"What were my words?" He demands furiously, shoving her between two burly men with enough force to make all three of them stumble, "What did I say? Tell them to leave me alone!"

"I _did_," she defends, somewhat indignant. "I swear. I told them I believed you."

"I'm going to ask you some simple questions. You're going to answer me honestly, or I swear to God I'm going to kill you."

The words almost stop her in her tracks, and it hits her with full force: he doesn't love her anymore.

And worse, he doesn't even _like_ her. He's contemptuous of the goon, the crony, the pretty girl they keep putting in front to take the bullets.

Something leaks out of Nicky, something she didn't even know she was holding onto. And she starts crying—from fear, yes; she knows what he is capable of. But from utter, _utter_ sadness, too. Because, despite everything, despite the fact that he's crazy, that he doesn't remember her, that he hates her, Jesus, that he puts a _gun to her head_, she loves him.

She _loves_ him. She loves him and she never told him and now she never can. And she can't even feel properly sorry for herself, because she did this. She gave him the missions and listened to his problems and never thought to say: get out. Get out while you still can. Look at what this job is doing to you. _Go._

He leaves her abruptly, without a word, without a second glance, and she stays huddled on the floor. Head in her hands. Wishing she'd never seen those lidded eyes.

Those eyes with the ocean in them.

-X-

It's not till later that his words come back to her. _I was 4,000 miles away, watching Marie die! They came for me and they got her!_

She's brushing her teeth when the thought strikes; she nearly chokes on the toothpaste and quickly spits it into the sink. Her head is whirling, old ideas slowly creeping to the forefront despite how she tries to push them away.

Abbott explained it all, she tells herself, lying on her bed with her face in her hands. Everything makes sense the way he told it and nothing does if David—if Jason—

Because if someone else killed Marie, then someone else killed those men in Berlin. And if David—if Jason isn't responsible for Berlin, than he's likely being framed, which means…

Which means that maybe he isn't as dead as she thought. Which means that she's been tracking and hunting someone that still has David inside him, even if he doesn't remember it.

"He's crazy," she whispers to herself, hand on her nauseous stomach. "He doesn't even know what he's saying."

But she knows him, better than she even knows herself, and she knows what it looks like when David Webb—or even Jason Bourne—is lying. And he loved Marie. It hurts to know it, but he did. He loved her endlessly for two solid years before she was taken. (It's a little less than what they had, but not significantly. She had him for two years and nine months.)

Nicky sits on the edge of her bed, thinking. Then she takes a pen, and she starts to write. Everything she can think of—about Treadstone, about Abbott, about Conklin, about David. About herself.

She looks at the words for a long time.

And then she comes to a decision.

-X-

Two days after Abbott's suicide—(Nicky feels sick, knowing that he had her so deceived, knowing that he sent her _after him_ despite the fact that he was innocent, that Jason—that _David_ was still there. He told her that David was dead but what he meant was that he was going to have him killed.)—she turns her blue eyes, her big blue eyes that make you want to tell her _everything _and hear that it's okay, on Simon Ross. She directs him to a contact who can give him the information he needs about Treadstone, initials N.D.

Three things are certain in this life: you will be lied to, you make terrible mistakes, and you can always trust in Jason Bourne.

-X-

Nicky Parsons is unassuming, she is sweet-tempered, and she is pissed.

And she is going to make things right.


End file.
